God likes me.

Twice today I have preached that God welcomes us into his family as co-heirs with Christ, loves us so passionately that he longs for intimate moments in our company, and even takes pleasure in who we are. (All this extrapolated from the words God spoke at Jesus's baptism.) I ended the sermon by getting the congregation to repeat after me "I am God's son/daughter. I am his beloved. With me he is well pleased."

Yet I still can't bring myself to believe it in my heart of hearts. It was only as I spoke the words aloud to myself whilst driving home that I realised what a difficult thing it is to believe. Does God really like me? I know he loves me, but does he like me? All the evidence from Scripture is that he does. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows all my weaknesses and my foibles, plus all those major sins that I don't even recognise. And he still likes me. Wow.